Hello. This is my first column on these pages. I\u2019ll be here monthly to answer your questions and discuss issues affecting our neighborhoods. Let me first say I\u2019m proud to serve as your City Councilmember. San Diego became America\u2019s Finest City because of communities like Midway, Ocean Beach and Point Loma, and I\u2019m committed to working to ensure our beaches and bays are clean, safe and inviting. I am passionate about protecting the environment, and in District 2 that starts with San Diego Bay, Mission Bay and our beaches. Within the last year, we\u2019ve made important strides in Midway, Ocean Beach and Point Loma, including: \u2022 Lease money generated in Mission Bay Park will now stay there and be invested at other local parks, such as Sunset Cliffs Natural Park, thanks to the ballot measure voters passed in November.\u2022 Lease money generated in Mission Bay Park will now stay there and be invested at other local parks, thanks to the ballot measure voters passed in November. \u2022 Our coastline is alcohol-free and family-friendly, thanks to another ballot measure voters supported in November. \u2022 The Ocean Beach library and Cabrillo Recreation Center remain open despite attempts to have them shuttered as a way to help close the city\u2019s budget gap. \u2022 Potholes were repaired along a 3,000-foot stretch of Chatsworth Boulevard. \u2022 The final phase of a 46-acre waterfront park is underway at Liberty Station. When fully completed later this year, NTC Park will be the second largest coastal park built in San Diego. I can\u2019t tell you how happy I am with the support the Mission Bay ballot measure received in November. Voters \u2014 67 percent \u2014 overwhelmingly approved this proposition, which I helped draft and campaigned hard for, along with Councilmember Donna Frye. Mission Bay is the largest manmade aquatic park in the world and a San Diego treasure, but improvements have been few and far between. Proposition C, which takes effect July 1, means Mission Bay Park now has a permanent revenue source dedicated to addressing a backlog of capital improvement projects. The Mission Bay Park Master Plan identified more than $300 million in such improvements 15 years ago \u2014 most of which are outstanding and include: \u2022 restoration of passable waterways; \u2022 wetland expansions; \u2022 restoration of beach sand and the stabilization of erosion; and \u2022 completion of bicycle and pedestrian paths. From now on, we\u2019re going to do what\u2019s right when it comes to Mission Bay Park, and I will continue to lead that effort while ensuring taxpayers get value for their investment. Voters also supported aligning San Diego with numerous other Southern California coastal communities that prohibit alcohol at beaches and bays. Locally, police are seeing fewer crimes and fewer problems at our beaches and bays. Alcohol-related crimes in beach communities were down about 17 percent last year over an eight-month period ending Sept. 7. Our beaches and bays are not only safer, they\u2019re much cleaner. No longer are we seeing the volume of cans and trash left behind weekend after weekend. As chair of the Audit Committee and vice chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, I\u2019m working to make sure the city has the resources it needs to protect our most treasured assets. My goal, and the goal of the editors at The Peninsula Beacon, is to make this column as interactive as possible. In that spirit, please send questions or issues you\u2019d like vetted to the newspaper, and I\u2019ll respond here in the coming months. You can e-mail your questions to editor Kevin McKay at beacon@sdnews.com. You also can reach me or my staff directly at kevinfaulconer@sandiego.gov or (619) 236-6622. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our bays and beaches. \u2014 City Council Pro Tem Kevin L. Faulconer represents District 2.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello. This is my first column on these pages. I\u2019ll be here monthly to answer your questions and discuss issues affecting our neighborhoods. Let me first say I\u2019m proud to serve as your City Councilmember. San Diego became America\u2019s Finest City because of communities like Midway, Ocean Beach and Point Loma, and I\u2019m committed to […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":282303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Tackling community issues that matter","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11552,11561,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-peninsula-beacon","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}